Retro Linux client crashing

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I am running the latest version of Retrospect 7 on a Windows 2003 Server. I am runnign the latest version of the Retrospect 7 client on a server running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 with the latest errata installed. I have approximately 450 GB of data on the server running RHEL3 that I am attempting to backup with Retrospect 7 via the client for Linux. My RHEL3 server has 2 Intel dual port gigabit ethernet cards that are "bonded" into a single interface with the bonding software that comes with RHEL3. So I have bond0, eth0, eth1, eth2, and eth3. Eth0 - eth4 are slaves to bond0. The machine only has one IP address, which is manually assigned. The bonding works FLAWLESSLY for all other applications/protocols/network services that I am running on the RHEL3 server. I do not know if it is a factor with the Retrospect 7 client.

After installing the Retrospect client on the RHEL3 server, I can configure the client and add it to the list of clients in Retrospect 7 on the Win 2003 server. I can do local backups (from local volumes to my LTO2 autoloader) fine on the Win 2003 server. I can begin a backup of the data on the RHEL3 server, but it stops about 150 - 250 GB into the backup job (several hours into the job). It starts by giving me error -519 (which says a network communication error occurred) and then moves to error -540 (which says it can find the network client.

After this occurs, if excute the following command:

ps -A | grep retro

on the the RHEL3 server then I get no results, meaning that the Retrospect client is not running. If rerun the Retrospect client rpm.post.install script on the RHEL3 server then it restarts the client. I then have to kill Retrospect 7 on the Windows 2003 Server and restart it (to get it to stop trying to execute the failed backup). I can then restart the backup, but get the same results.

I have an open case with Dantz, but no solution so far.

Thanks,

Abe Hayhurst

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I hate to do this to you, but what version(s) are you running? Most people posting to this forum will say, "the latest", when asked what version, but it's usually about 50/50 odds that they do. It should take you all of 5 min to find and post the versions, but it would take us days to guess that you had made a mistake.

When you start the Retrospect Client on your Linux computer, you should use the /usr/local/dantz/client/rcl script, or it's handy symlink, /etc/init.d/rcl. #./rcl start, would be the command. The way you are doing it sounds painful.

Are you getting any errors in your syslog related to the Retrospect Client crash? I don't think this has anything to do with your ethernet setup.

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I forgot to mention that I have to kill whatever Retrospect process is left running on the RHEL3 server in order to restart the client. I tried your method, but it did not work unless I killed the process first.

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I've looked extensively into this situation and I'm finding that there is a problem with the Retrospect Client. The issue has been reported to EMC Dantz Development and the best you and I can do is wait on a fix.

Which is an 'Out of Memory' error. It appears to happen specifically on the Red Hat Enterprise 3 versions of Linux.

You could try to split the Backup into smaller chunks for the time being until there is a fix. The problem seems to be related to the time the Client has been running. You could also back this information up via an SMB share, which I think would be a better short term option.